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Show 72 bonndary- line of said Territory; thence south with said western boundary- line of said Territory; thence east with said southern boundary- line to the place of beginning, shall be, and the same is hereby, set apart for the absolute and undisturbed use and occupation of th'e Indians herein named, and for such other friendly tribes or individual Indians as, from time to time, they may be willing, with the consent of the United States, to admit among them; and the United States now solemnly agree that no persons, except those herein authorized so to do, and except such officers, agents, and employe's of the Government as may be authorized to enter upon Indian reservations in discharge of duties enjoined by law, shall ever be permitted to pass over, settle upon, or reside in the territory described in this article, except as herein otherwise provided. They cannot be said to possess a language, but rather a jargon, composed, for the most part, of guttural sounds, mingled with words from the Spanish and English. The jargon is dialectic, as may be proved bj the fact that distant branches of the same general tribe use many words which are not intelligible to each other. It is a very erroneous idea, harbored by many in the East, that all of the Indian tribes west of the Rocky Mountains employ but one language peculiar only to the Americaa race. On the contrary, however, there exist as many Indian dialects as there are distiuct tribes. If we find snch discrepancies in the same or neighboring tribes, is it not probable that distant tribes are much'more apt to differ in this respect? Such we find is the case, for the Nava-joes and Utes, although on the most friendly terms, are unable to understand each other, haying scarcely a word in common, although they are located within one hundred miles of each other. Last summer, ( 1874,) a delegation ofNavajoes-^ isited the Utes at the White River agency, Colo., for the purpose of trading their blankets for ponies, guns, & c, and it was only through a Spanish interpreter that they were enabled to effect their trading, the Spanish language being an intermediate link between the two dialects. In dress these nations, if we may so call them, differ considerably, the Navajoes wearing simply a shirt, loose, short breeches extending to the knee, a blanket, leggings, moccasins, ornamented usually with little or no bead- work, and tbe head bound with a cloth or bandana. In this connection it may be well to briefly allude to the Navajo blankets. The Navajoes, being a semi- civilized tribe, devote much of their attention to sheep raising in New Mexico, and from the wool they manufacture blankets which, for durability and impenetrability of water, far surpass anything of the kind made by civilized methods, and in tbe arrangement of their very durable coloring an unusual degree of taste is displayed. Tbe hand- made blankets are very heavy, perfectly waterproof, and the finest work very beautiful, bringing, in some instances, as high a price as $ 500. The languages of the North American Indians have, perhaps, scarcely reached a higher degree of perfection than existed at the discovery of America; or, if they ever improved, they have retrograded to the same state of imperfection, for it has become a proverbial idea that the Indian makes no advances, no improvements, no new discoveries, bat follows continually in the footsteps of his forefathers. It will be seen, then, that the savage mode of expression is at present very little in advauce of the primary forms of language. The human speech is supposed to have commenced in the formation of nouns, consisting merely in the naming of external objects, and as man's wants increased and his mind was developed, adjectives next came into use, and so on down to the least important part of speech. The language of the Utes stands on a footing of equality with that of other Indian tribe*, and being simply a spoken language, it is difficult to represent the |
